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Re: Should we Eliminate Social Security?

Originally Posted by Catawba

If a class owns 80% of the country's wealth, they should pay 80% of the taxes, if you are seeking equality.

Kind of. If you have 1 house and I have 5, I should pay 5 times more taxes than you. But taxing me more just because I've worked my butt to have 5 houses while your butt was sitting on the sofa - that's nonsense. You cannot take peoples money just because they have them. That's called otherwise - "stealing".

Re: Should we Eliminate Social Security?

And the wise person will have his assets in tangible form, ie, gold coin and bullion,

Yeah!
Some folks are born silver spoon in hand,
Lord, don't they help themselves, oh.
But when the taxman comes to the door,
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yes,

"Fortunate Son", CCR.

When gold hits $2000 an ounce, a hundred thousand dollars will wiegh about three pounds. Three pounds of gold is about twelve cubic inches of gold.

A roll of quarters is slightly less than two cubic inches, so $100,000 could be disguised as six rolls of quarters.

There's a reason the socialists snuck that 1099 requirement into the Obama Care travesty to force vendors to report all transactions in excess of $600. The government wanted to start tracking who was buying physical gold.

Early each day to the steps of Saint Paul's
The little old bird woman comes.
In her own special way to the people she calls,
"Come, buy my bags full of crumbs.

Although you can't see it, you know they are smiling
Each time someone shows that he cares.
Though her words are simple and few,
Listen, listen, she's calling to you:
"Feed the birds, tuppence a bag,
Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag."

The guys who wrote this had to play it for their boss, Walt Disney, every morning first thing.
It was Disney's favorite song.

Re: Should we Eliminate Social Security?

Originally Posted by sazerac

That would be a hoot!

That was unfair. Our military is run by the government. We don't want to privatize the military. Do we? It would be disastrous if the government didn't run retirement programs because it is the only organization that can force saving by law.

Re: Should we Eliminate Social Security?

Yes, it needs to be eliminated. It can't be eliminated in an immediete fashion however. Its gotta be a tiered thing. I suggest the same as I always suggested. Everyone 45 years and up automatically stays enrolled as it is now, paying the tax and getting the benefits. Everyone from 35 years old to 45 have a choice, continue paying the tax and be able to draw on it or opt out. Everyone under 35 is automatically opted out.

Universally, raise the age that you can start claiming SS by 3 years. Additionally institute a 2% sales tax on non-food, medicine, or housing that is not part of the total government revenue but is instead set aside singularly for social security and is rolled over each year. The Tax would have an unbreakable sunset, expiring once the last individual drawing upon SS dies.

Now, here's where I likely break with some of my conservative brethren. I do recognize the importance of mandatory retirement saving. While I dislike the government telling people what to do with their money, I realize that people...especially many young people...have issues truly looking into the future and poor retirement planning can lead to people being in a very bad situation at a point in their life when attempting to fix it on your own is going to be most difficult. How to combat this is still something I'm working on but my rough thought at this point would be the following.

Institutde a mandotory retirement savings program. Every individual, at the time of their birth, is created a government savings account. This GSA is connected to the "G Fund", which I'm sure some federal workers with the TSP would be familiar with. the G-Fund is described as follows:

G Fund

The G Fund assets are managed internally by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board. The G Fund buys a nonmarketable U.S. Treasury security that is guaranteed by the U.S. Government. This means that the G Fund will not lose money.

Since its inception the G-Fund has had an average return of 5.97% interest. In the past twelve months its been at 2.7%. I think its safe to assume in general at least a 2% performance of this fund.

Employees would have 5% of their paycheck deducted and put into their GSA every time, with Employers matching that 5%. What this would mean is a slight increase on the employee with a decrease on the employer. This money would go directly into the individuals GSA rather than into some generalized pot of money. Money within a GSA would be untouchable until 65 years of age, but would NOT be taxed once you remove it. If you were to die prior to 65 years of age a dependent would be able to claim that money. At 65 years of age you are able to start removing money from the account, at a maximum of 8% per year, making sure you get at least roughly 12 years of payments from the account. I would also suggest indexing it that every 10 years if the average life span of an American increase by 5 years that the age one begins to draw from the GSA would go up by 3 years. I would also suggest any other money one pays into an official retirement system through their employer should also be tax exempt at the point of investment AND when its removed.

While the above savings account may not be enough entirely for someone to retire on, it should at least give them a good start and if nothing else a decent life preserver for the first decade after retirement. Supplimented by personal, non-government backed, plans in the private sector individuals should be able to successfully take care of their retirement. It also assures that you get what you get your money back that you paid. Taking that money out of the governments hands and no longer having to worry about how it will be funded.

Re: Should we Eliminate Social Security?

Originally Posted by Zyphlin

Yes, it needs to be eliminated. It can't be eliminated in an immediete fashion however. Its gotta be a tiered thing. I suggest the same as I always suggested. Everyone 45 years and up automatically stays enrolled as it is now, paying the tax and getting the benefits. Everyone from 35 years old to 45 have a choice, continue paying the tax and be able to draw on it or opt out. Everyone under 35 is automatically opted out.

Universally, raise the age that you can start claiming SS by 3 years. Additionally institute a 2% sales tax on non-food, medicine, or housing that is not part of the total government revenue but is instead set aside singularly for social security and is rolled over each year. The Tax would have an unbreakable sunset, expiring once the last individual drawing upon SS dies.

Now, here's where I likely break with some of my conservative brethren. I do recognize the importance of mandatory retirement saving. While I dislike the government telling people what to do with their money, I realize that people...especially many young people...have issues truly looking into the future and poor retirement planning can lead to people being in a very bad situation at a point in their life when attempting to fix it on your own is going to be most difficult. How to combat this is still something I'm working on but my rough thought at this point would be the following.

Institutde a mandotory retirement savings program. Every individual, at the time of their birth, is created a government savings account. This GSA is connected to the "G Fund", which I'm sure some federal workers with the TSP would be familiar with. the G-Fund is described as follows:

Since its inception the G-Fund has had an average return of 5.97% interest. In the past twelve months its been at 2.7%. I think its safe to assume in general at least a 2% performance of this fund.

Employees would have 5% of their paycheck deducted and put into their GSA every time, with Employers matching that 5%. What this would mean is a slight increase on the employee with a decrease on the employer. This money would go directly into the individuals GSA rather than into some generalized pot of money. Money within a GSA would be untouchable until 65 years of age, but would NOT be taxed once you remove it. If you were to die prior to 65 years of age a dependent would be able to claim that money. At 65 years of age you are able to start removing money from the account, at a maximum of 8% per year, making sure you get at least roughly 12 years of payments from the account. I would also suggest indexing it that every 10 years if the average life span of an American increase by 5 years that the age one begins to draw from the GSA would go up by 3 years. I would also suggest any other money one pays into an official retirement system through their employer should also be tax exempt at the point of investment AND when its removed.

While the above savings account may not be enough entirely for someone to retire on, it should at least give them a good start and if nothing else a decent life preserver for the first decade after retirement. Supplimented by personal, non-government backed, plans in the private sector individuals should be able to successfully take care of their retirement. It also assures that you get what you get your money back that you paid. Taking that money out of the governments hands and no longer having to worry about how it will be funded.

All of this requires the government. Aren't you just making adjustments to the program?